Unlike the Italian verismo composers, the German operatic composers of the nineteenth century turned to the heroic, the supernatural, and to legends and lore for their stories. Carl Maria von Weber emerged as the first significant composer with his opera Der Freischütz.  The most significant contribution to German opera came from Richard Wagner. 

     Although he is one of the most significant and interesting personalities in music history, Wagner’s background and training belied this significance. His musical training was unsystematic, and he never became a proficient performer on any particular instrument.

     He was raised by his mother’s second husband, Ludwig Geyer, a gifted artist, actor, and playwright. Throughout Wagner’s childhood it was rumored that Geyer was his real father. Wagner came to believe this, too. Like Schumann and Berlioz, Wagner showed an early interest in literature, even writing an early drama in the style of Shakespeare.

     His professional career began in 1833 when he became the chorus master for the Würzburg Theater. He soon began composing and producing operas. His first, Rienzi, Last of the Tribunes, required such large forces that it could only be produced in a very large theater. It wasn’t until 1842 that he was able to put a production together in Dresden. The success of this opera and that of the production of Der fliegende Holländer (The Flying Dutchman) the following year led to his appointment as music director of the Royal Opera House in Dresden. 

     The next several years were busy ones. Wagner produced many operas and completed two of his own, Tannhäuser and Lohengrin. Wagner also became involved in the revolutionary uprising of 1848-1849. When a warrant for his arrest was issued, he fled to Switzerland.

     During his ten-year exile in Switzerland, Wagner produced a number of essays in which he laid the foundations of his philosophy of opera, which he called “music drama.” After seventeen years of work, he completed his monumental cycle of four operas in 1852. The cycle is called Der Ring des Nibelungen (The Ring of the Nibelungs). These are extremely demanding works and take from three to five hours each to perform. It was also during this period that he composed two of his most popular and frequently performed works, Tristan und Isolde and Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg.

     Wagner experienced considerable difficulty getting his operas produced. He went into debt and became seriously depressed, even contemplating suicide. In 1864, however, his fortune changed due to two important events.

     Ludwig II, the newly crowned king of Bavaria, was an admirer of Wagner’s music. The king invited Wagner to Munich with the promise of financial support. The second event was Wagner’s affair with Cosima von Bülow, wife of the conductor Hans von Bülow. Cosima, the daughter of Franz Liszt, eventually left her husband to marry Wagner, devoting herself completely to his career.

     With Ludwig’s help, the  Wagners raised enough money to build the Festspielhaus (festival drama house) in Bayreuth. It was here that Wagner was finally able to finally produce his Ring cycle in 1876. He completed one more work after this, Parsifal (1882). He died of a heart attack in Venice in 1883. The Festspielhaus, though, continues to operate, still being run by the Wagner family.

QUESTIONS AND TOPICS 

1. Wagner was an incredibly complex character. He was a rabid anti-Semite, fueled partly because he feared he might have a Jewish background. Wagner was Adolf Hitler’s favorite composer. Hitler used Wagner’s music as a propaganda tool and also made use of Wagner’s anti-Semitic writings. Since its founding, the state of Israel has banned his music because of this association. In 2001 Daniel Barenboim planned to conduct the Berlin Statskapelle in a performance of Wagner’s Die Walküre in Jerusalem. After protests, he programmed music of Stravinky instead.  He added excepts from Tristan as an encore. Although most of the audience agreed that the music should be played, there were loud protests from various audience members.

2. Don’t overlook the fact that the four operas of Der Ring des Nibelungen were based on some of the same myths and legends with which J.R.R. Tolkien, author of The Lord of the Rings, was familiar. You might use this connection to get your students interested in the Wagner operas. As mentioned in the textbook, a ring with certain magical powers is central to the action. There is also a Gollum-like character obsessed by the ring in Wagner’s work. Tolkien was familiar with Wagner’s music and there are parallels, but his devout Roman Catholicism was Tolkien’s biggest influence.

3. Understanding Wagner’s use of the leitmotif is challenging. Wagener used the leitmotif to represent characters, objects, emotions, psychological states, and so on. Trying to keep track of a particular leitmotif can be difficult, too, because they may change as the character’s mood changes, more than one leitmotif may be applied, and so on. Challenge your students to focus on one particular character and pay attention to any identifiable leitmotifs.

FURTHER TOPICS FOR DISCUSSION

1. Mark Twain quipped that “Wagner’s music is better than it sounds.” Why might he have said this? Is there any truth underlying the humor?

2. Are the leitmotifs effective? Do they heighten the drama or are they too esoteric for the uninitiated?

3. How do you feel about Israel’s ban on Wagner’s music? Does this say something about the power of music?